Heaving
by NotHardlyCharlotte
Summary: There were days when Luella wondered if she hadn't lost both sons. * Here he inhaled only dust.
1. Inhale

So I'm going to get right to the point. I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I'm posting this little one-shot, yay! The bad news is that this will probably be the last thing I post for the next few weeks. I have to send in my computer so they can hopefully fix this weird, sounds-like-it-might-explode noise or send me a new computer. So I will be hand-writing everything, then transferring it later. I am so sorry in advanced for my even crappier updating.

Anyway..

**Warnings: **some possible triggers of grief, but overall it shouldn't be _that_ bad...

Spoilers (duh): if you haven't read the manga or seen the anime...

Quick Note: This is a sort of prequel to Nature Boy, to explain why Naru came back sooner than most people would have him. If I remember correctly what I've written however, it can stand alone.

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><p>It was an old house, filled with little creaks and groans from the beams settling. Rarely did silence exist in her home, not just because the house itself breathed, but because she had two teenaged boys. Obscenely intelligent, mature, and focused boys, but <em>boys<em> nonetheless. Noll disturbed the quiet with his scathing remarks and disinterested sighs while Gene chatted and bothered his 'little' brother. Occasionally one or both of them would stomp through the house, though usually it was one. Noll moved like a cat sometimes. She heard them whispering in the night, even across the hall. It was such a wonderful ruckus.

She'd _had_ two teenaged boys. The house was silent, except for its heaving. Noll had done what he'd left home to do, and he'd returned as he said he would, pressing a kiss to her forehead when they landed back on English soil. Two months today since the funeral, and everything was quiet.

There were days when Luella wondered if she hadn't lost both sons.

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><p>Her husband was holed up at the office, or in his study if she were lucky enough to have him home for more than four hours a night. Part of her wanted to speak with him again, and reassure herself that she was making the right decision. The other part looked for her son, her surviving son, her mind would viciously remind her, but he wasn't anywhere near. He'd taken to reading in the loft above the stable, curled amongst the hay bales as if he were seven instead of seventeen. When they were children, the boys would spend hours up there, dangling their feet over the edge while Noll practiced flipping a coin between his fingers. She wondered if he remembered. Probably.<p>

Luella smiled to herself, even if it was forced. He hadn't cried, not since she'd met him, fell in love with him and brought him home. He'd never even been a little boy, not the way Gene was, all big wet eyes and hiccupped 'Mum's. That, she had been prepared for. Not a sullen little man turning his chin up at the world because the world regarded him as something unnatural. She'd learned every nuance about him just to feel like she even remotely understood him.

He was suffering. She saw it in the way he didn't quietly spark to life, in the flat dullness of his eyes. All their mourning, the process of tearing out your heart and choking on it, then the numbness, and the sparks of amusement and fondness that meant they were healing seemed pointless the moment Lin called with the news. All that energy exerted on getting up in the morning, only to choke again at the tangible proof. But Noll did not heal, she realized belatedly, and it was like a syringe of ice water plunged into her heart. He hadn't had time to grieve, even if he knew how. Luella had the overwhelming, deadening feeling that her son would always wear black.

She suddenly loathed the color.

"You've been standing there for about five minutes, Mother," a voice called from above, and a silly, hopeful part of her thought for a moment that it could be an angel. But angels didn't wear black.

He was right, she _had _been standing there for quite some time, utterly blind to her own arrival at the stables. She hadn't even noticed the lack of wind, or the leathery scent of the horses, or the feisty gelding they'd bought two years ago that still snorted and whinnied in his stall with righteous indignation. The air was warmer in here, without the gentle chill of the fall breezes. She still felt cold.

"I was looking for you, darling," she managed only after clearing her throat twice. Her voice was rough, probably from disuse. More likely from the lump of clay she'd apparently swallowed on the way down. "Let's have a chat, hm?"

He stared down at her from the hayloft, stark against the backdrop of warm wood and yellow light, making no move to come down or dismiss her. Deliberating whether he would comply or gently decline. Not that she'd give him the option. Before he could decide she started up the ladder.

"Be careful," he ordered sternly, but she knew it was surprise and concern that sharpened his tongue. Such blatant show of care garnered a smile from her.

They stood together for a moment, silent, pointedly avoiding each other's gaze. She wasn't one to lose her words, a trait which her son had adopted from her, when he bothered speaking. Yet she was clambering for them now, groping for them as one would for a hand in a haunted room. The self-doubt was back, along with that awful, miserable feeling. To have her son back, she'd have to let him go. Reaching across to grab his hand, she felt as if she were spanning a much wider distance. He was so far away from her, fingers limp beneath hers.

Luella would tear out her heart again, send it on a plane across the world if she could have her son close again. She would.

"Sit with me, darling." Her voice sounded choked to her. That was fine, though. Noll would react to her show of grief as he normally did, placating. She wasn't surprised when he complied without protest. Luella wrapped both hands around his, cradling it to her.

"Your flight leaves in two days. Enough time, I think, for you to pack and make arrangements." He was staring at the arm caught in her grip, blue eyes hard. Brow furrowed, jaw clenched. Silence. All the tell-tale signs of confusion.

"I don't recall discussing vacation plans with you," he tried, the suspicion plain in the deadpan of his voice.

"We're not going on holiday." He waited while she collected herself, face blank. "I want you here, I do. If I had my way you'd never leave me," she managed through a watery chuckle, looking to his long fingers trapped in hers. She remembered how small that hand had seemed when he'd reached out for her the first time. The serious little 'Mother' that had escaped his lips, "But you're not happy."

"Mother, I—."

"Don't you dare play hero, young man. Staying here, trapped in this house and at work is not helping you in the least," she interrupted firmly. The bout of reprimand gave her the vitality to do this. She could. He was giving up his happiness for her. She could send him on his way and be glad for it.

When his mouth shut with a barely audible clack of his teeth, she continued, "Your father is giving you a promotion. In four days' time you will take over for Madoka as the head of SPR in Japan."

She gave him a long moment to digest the words, to let them tumble around in his head until every bit made sense to him. His other hand clenched and unclenched spasmodically, then fanned out flat against his leg, white fingers against the black of his pants.

"Mother." One finger curled. She breathed in deeply. _Bum-bum._ Her heart in her throat, but she'd gotten used to breathing around it.

"I…" Another, his thumb tucked against his index. She felt her pulse rebound from his.

Silence. The last three, one by one, disappeared beneath his palm. He turned sad eyes to her.

"Thank you."

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><p>I just love writing Luella. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it!<p>

Oh, and just one note from me as an author: Do not ever expect me to hold stories hostage for reviews. That's not how I operate. If you read my story and enjoy it, that's enough for me. It's why I bother posting them. Reviews are like pleasant surprises, as are favorites and follows. But my goal as an author is to write something that makes you feel, not become the most reviewed author on this site. If I've done that, then I'm content.

Okay, rant over. If you're wondering what prompted that, let's just say one too many authors have hijacked some really good stories for reviews, and that does not a happy NotHardlyCharlotte make.

As always, if you have any questions, concerns, or just feel like talking, shoot me a PM or review or carrier pigeon, and I'll try to get back to you when my computer no longer threatens to blow up!


	2. Choke

So I told myself I was done with this one, but even after two (three?) years, I wasn't quite content with the first part. Originally when I wrote it, I stopped halfway, forgot where I was going with it, and did something new, and I've always doubted if it was as good as my original, lost idea. This, I think, evens it out more. Surprise!

**Warnings: Loss, grief, brief, _brief_ mentions of sex, maybe some light cursing.**

Spoilers (duh): I think you know what I'll say here

Disclaimer: Here too

Enjoy!

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><p>His office had been the only place in this cavern of a home where he could <em>breathe. <em>Where the pictures could be turned up and down as his mood saw fit to drown in them, where the spilled ink and slowly ebbing bowl of caramels reminded him only of work, and reading, and long spells in which the only bodies to cross the threshold were the minute orbs of dust. Because he could choose to remember whether the weeks and days and hours away from the slightly battered mahogany desk were filled by his wife and sons, or if they were empty.

This was his. Truly his. The boys had never entered this room except in their idle, passing imagination. Luella had always waited for his reemergence, like an old bear hauled from its den by springtime.

This was pure of memories he couldn't stand to look at, not yet. Not while he had to learn how to breathe for the second time without inhaling his son's name.

This was his escape.

Here he inhaled only dust.

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><p>Now he was choking and he couldn't say <em>why<em>.

Luella sat across from him, like one of his students waxing dramatic over a late paper while he played the sympathetic professor, and for a moment he could almost keep her there at an arm's length, wanted to and it made him ill. Not his wife. Not mother to his children. Just a student who was a league from him, stony in her resolve to sway his principles but unable or unwilling to bite down the twinge of desperation. He savored the distance. Because he was in very quiet, forcefully restrained agony watching her wait for him to respond.

"I—," he tried, uncertain as to whether he was prepared to agree or shut down this idea that was too painfully, frighteningly _real_ to be anything less than ludicrous. "What can this possibly achieve?" His voice was steady, polite and appropriately concerned for all that he nearly screamed at her. It impressed him every time. How easy this little show had become.

She did not look away. (She could only see through it, after all. But that wasn't the point. It wasn't _for her._) "He isn't happy. He isn't…_coping._ As much as it goes against everything I've learned, he needs a change."

Martin wondered if he imagined the _neither are you_ slipped between her sentences.

"He should be here." He wanted to add a reason. Like _studies _or _work_ or even _me._ There were other reasons, reasons on _her _side. Every case report faxed to his office that felt like a series of hot slaps across his face, because he could see how much he _flourished _in the details of his notes_._ Lin's brief, succinct calls, the name _Taniyama_ and a sound like a chuckle. Nothing came to his tongue but his damnable calm.

"Should he?"

He didn't _know._ "There's nothing we can do for him six thousand miles away." Too calm. He didn't want to be calm.

"Can we do anything at all?"

_I don't know!_

He'd shouted it. Dust tumbled off the books in little undulating waves with its force. He felt something crack in him, drain his being like the thick plasma of an egg through its own shell.

Quieter this time. "I don't know."

For a moment, a long, heaving moment, Luella stared at him. And for a moment, he could see his wife and he wasn't afraid to name her. She was exhausted, bleary-eyed, crumbling one second to the next, beautiful in a way that he clung to, while he tried to breathe around his heart jammed in his throat. Luella, his wife, mother to his children even if a corner of the picture was burned away. And God was it raw to have her so near and so lovely, ephemeral like when she reached for him in the stillness of their too-quiet home and made love to him for no more than the sounds of their breathing. As if something so fleeting could fill the space. He slid his hand across the desk's scratched and stained top, sought that hazy touch while he could stand himself to want it.

Her fingers curled around his with strength he could only pretend to have for now.

"Who else can really help him but himself?" she asked with a voice just as raw and scathed as this moment.

He swiped his free palm over his face. "I think we both know the answer to that."

_But he's _gone.

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><p>Luella had left him with a kiss on his forehead, lingering for the first time in months as he felt the tickle of air that meant she was breathing him in. Something swelled in him at the realization, like a sob but he only gripped her retreating hand all the tighter for a second more. He wasn't prepared to let her go, but then, he supposed, one could never <em>really <em>let go. These connections were chemical, a rewritten path in the mind with every touch, every exchange. Irrevocable paths.

His feet carried him away from his office, up the staircase worn by an entire genealogy of footsteps, down a hallway he'd walked too many times, to stop at a door. In those moments that blanked in his mind entirely with their explosive insistence, he could manage to open this door. He could inhale the staling cologne and aging books and barely perceptible hint of _lingering._ He would never cross the threshold. But he could force himself to look.

His shoes stirred a bursting of dust.

It wasn't quite a time capsule, at least, not in the deliberate sense. They hadn't enshrined their memories here, yet he felt them more overwhelmingly the longer he stood on the threadbare rug. Half of the room was neat; Noll had entered once in a fit of stoic confusion to look for a book, and spent nearly ten hours reorganizing the already meticulous alphabetization into something haphazard that could only make sense to him. The other half was tastefully disorganized, _lived-in_, Luella would say, despite the bitter cold of disuse. A few clothes scattered on the floor, papers stacked but not necessarily organized. The violin in the corner with its toppled-over bow, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd hear even one note from its untuned strings. He took in every detail with slow, numbing attention. The quilt with uneven stitching, the product of impulse and hobbies and something to do with Mother. The record player commandeered from the attic along with a stack of vinyl that had never been played. Cream-colored walls so plastered with maps and magazine pages and newspaper clippings that he only remembered the color from the day they'd chosen the paint.

An open closet door. He averted his eyes. Every detail, except one.

There was a dress shirt on the floor, he knew without looking. Left there after he'd pried it from Noll's convulsing fingers. _Enough._

He walked towards the bed, smooth on one side and hastily straightened on the other. Hardly noticeable past the disarray of the quilt's craftsmanship. As he sat, his body prickled with a feeling like cold. One thought struck him, violently, and he shivered. He hadn't felt this mattress creak beneath him for almost eight years.

_Daddy, I'm not tired._ Always with a yawn, keeping himself awake because he could.

_I'll strike a deal then. You sleep, and I'll tell you about the Windsor mansion. _Luella may or may not have banned ghost stories before bedtime.

Wide eyes, followed by a mad struggle with sheets and pillows. He would inhale slowly, theatrically, like a countdown but before the story could even begin, the door would open, and Noll would edge in quietly to slip beneath the blankets too. It surprised him every time, this timing that he knew to be a beckoning only silent to him, though he should have expected it, just the way their rapt attention startled him. They never fell asleep before the story's end, no matter how he dragged it out. Only when he left, and he'd wait outside the door to hear them breathe quietly between themselves. Giggling too, out loud because they didn't need to hide for once. They were safe here, and they knew it. He relished the idea.

Martin clutched a pillow to his chest and didn't notice the soft cotton tickling his chin until a sob choked from his lips. Until his stomach clenched hard against the down-stuffed bag wedged between his arms.

_They were supposed to be safe. _

But then, he knew, more intimately and agonizingly and—_I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry—_and bitterly and constantly and—_God, forgive me forgive me forgive me—_and heavily and _heavingly_ that you could offer no protection beyond your own weakness, and that you could never really stop the ones you love from leaving you.

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><p>He drove Noll to the airport three days later.<p>

He drove back alone.

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><p>In case you needed a dose of depression this weekend...<p>

I hope you enjoyed despite the feels, and as per usual, let me know if some glaring, god awful mistake pops out. Then I shall kill it with fire.

Thanks for reading!

-NHC


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